


Hands in hair and plausible deniability

by LexiusNemean



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bittersweet, Flirting, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Third Year Hinata Shouyou, Third Year Tsukishima Kei, Touching, almost getting together, one swear word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26563972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LexiusNemean/pseuds/LexiusNemean
Summary: "You've become a Sugawara-san type," Hinata said once during practice. "Always ruffling people's hair.""Oh, does that mean you're trying to become Asahi-san?" Tsukishima tugged one of the locks between his fingers as a smiled tugged up the corners of his lips. "Growing your hair out won't make you a better ace, you know."
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 10
Kudos: 182





	Hands in hair and plausible deniability

**Author's Note:**

> Hinata's hair got SO SHAGGY as a third year and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And so I wrote this on my phone in the span of a few mornings.

It all started their third year.

The YamaYama duo (as they'd begun to be called) were once again busy doing captain work, leaving Tsukishima and Hinata alone together. This had been happening more and more often since Yamaguchi and Kageyama rose to capitancy, and they were still getting used to this shuffling of their friend groups.

"Have you and Yamaguchi ever not been in the same class?" Hinata asked, crumpling up the wrapper of the sandwich he'd just scarfed down.

"We weren't in together in middle school, but ever since we came to Karasuno..." Tsukishima's face twisted into a frown as he drank his strawberry milk, like this train of thought had made it go sour. "Anyway, why do you keep coming here to eat your lunch? Go back to your own class."

"But you'll be lonely all by yourself!"

"I'll be fine. Besides, didn't you know?" Tsukishima reached out and ruffled Hinata's hair, pushing down on his skull. "The advanced classes have a height limit."

Hinata growled and shouted as he tried to pry Tsukishima's hand off, which only made Tsukishima reach out with his other hand to bury both in Hinata's hair. Eventually he stopped shoving down on Hinata's head ("stop trying to make me shorter!") and settled for combing his fingers through Hinata's hair.

"It's gotten so long..." he carded through the orange locks, taking notice of how Hinata seemed to relax under him. "Ever hear of a haircut?"

"Shut up, I'll get to it."

He did not. As the year went on Hinata's hair only became shaggier, and Tsukishima only became more prone to running his hands through it. Whenever they were idle and near each other it would happen, Tsukishima reaching out to touch the lion's mane on Hinata's head.

"You've become a Sugawara-san type," Hinata said once during practice. "Always ruffling people's hair."

"Oh, does that mean you're trying to become Asahi-san?" Tsukishima tugged one of the locks between his fingers as a smiled tugged up the corners of his lips. "Growing your hair out won't make you a better ace, you know."

  
Things like this became a normal part of their interactions, regardless of their environment or the people around them. In the hallway, at practice, on the walk home; anytime that Hinata's hair wasn't too wet with sweat, Tsukishima usually had a hand in it.

It was only as exams came around that anyone questioned it. Their third year group had gotten together at the library to study, and Tsukishima was writing in a notebook with one hand while the other gently dragged nails across Hinata's scalp.

"Tsukishima, stopppp, you're making me sleepy."

Not looking up from his work, he chuckled. "Don't you usually like when I do this?"

"Yeah, but right now it feels too nice and I can't focus!"

Yamaguchi, Kageyama, and Yachi watched from their spots at the table, all varying states of awkward, before Yamaguchi opened his mouth.

"So uh, did you two start dating?"

The hand in the hair stopped. Studying stopped. For a moment, everything stopped.

Hinata and Tsukishima looked at each other for a moment before turning their quizzical stares to Yamaguchi. "...what?"

"A lot of the kouhais have been asking." This time it was Yachi who spoke, though with a bit of trepidation. "I'm never sure what to tell them."

"Tell them it's simple skinship," Tsukishima quipped, looking back down at his textbook. "They're in a sports club, surely they've heard of it."

"Yeah!" Hinata agreed, a bit too loudly for the library. "It's not like we do anything couply outside of that, right?"

As Yachi profusely apologized and Hinata and Kageyama attempted to calm her, Yamaguchi leaned across the table and gave Tsukishima a knowing look.

"But Tsukki's never been the type to like skinship."

"Shut up, Yamaguchi."

Yamaguchi merely grinned and pantomimed zipping his lips. His silence didn't hold for long, though; on the walk home Yamaguchi shouldered Tsukishima playfully and opened that traitorous mouth to ask "why don't you ever have skinship with _me_ , Tsukki?"

Well, it wasn't like he could refuse a request from his captain. Tsukishima gave Yamaguchi a very friendly headlock for his troubles, the screams of their friends a soundtrack for their first instance of skinship.

Morning practice the next day found them bright and early in the gym, Tsukishima reaching out to fluff up Hinata's windswept hair. But this time Hinata fidgeted self consciously, eyes sweeping over their teammates.

Tsukishima let his hand fall to his side with a frown. "Do you dislike it now?"

"No, nothing like that! It's just hard not to feel awkward now that I know everyone's watching us."

Tsukishima nodded, taking a moment to curse Yamaguchi in his head. But then a thought brought a devious smile to his face. "Since we have their attention already, do you want to mess with them a little?"

Hinata only took a second to process before breaking into a grin, nodding enthusiastically. "Gimmie your hand!"

"Don't tell me we're going to hold hands. We're not kindergartners." Nevertheless, Tsukishima offered the requested hand with a raised brow.

Hinata snatched the hand up and held it in both his own. "No, stupidshima, I just wanted to take a look and figured this was as good a time as any."

Just as he said, Hinata peered down at Tsukishima's hand, studying it with muted fascination. Placing his open palm against Tsukishima's, he cooed, "woooaaahh, so long! Your hands are so much bigger than mine!"

Tsukishima, who was already starting to feel his face warm, merely nodded. Hinata continued his investigation, turning Tsukishima's hand and running his fingers across the skin there. "I figured you touch me so often now, I should at least be familiar with your hands...hey, is this the one that got messed up our freshman year when you blocked Ushijima?"

"Mm, yeah." Tsukishima swallowed dry, feeling like the ever increasing heat in his face was dehydrating his brain.

"Did it leave a scar?"

"Yeah...here."

He directed Hinata to the space between his pinky and ring finger, where a small stripe of pale skin hid. Hinata ran a finger over it, before grinning.

"You were so cool then, Tsukishima!"

How was Hinata so fascinated by his hand that he didn't realize he'd been turning Tsukishima into a blushing, monosyllabic mess? Surely if Tsukishima hadn't been red before, he was now. Looking around, he caught Yamaguchi shaking in barely-repressed laughter.

'Shut up Yamaguchi' he mouthed, before snatching his hand out of Hinata's grasp. His face was burning, he failed to make a fool out of anyone but himself: his plan backfired. Probably.

The original goal was to share more affection with Hinata, so technically he didn't _actually_ fail, but this still sucked. 

  
Hinata had learned that Tsukishima couldn't take what he dished out.

The old norm was Tsukishima touched, Hinata recieved: that got turned on its head as soon as Hinata had a taste of Tsukishima's pitiful responses to physical affection. He seemed to get a kick out of his reactions, and Tsukishima apparently got a kick out of dying by Hinata's hand, so he always let him.

That being said, when Hinata called him over during practice only to say, "bend down," Tsukishima saw the trap coming a mile away and still bowed his head obediently... Be it, with some snark.

"Got tired of craning your neck up to see me?" he got out just as Hinata's hands flew into his hair.

"Nah, just wanted to do this!" Hinata dragged his callused fingertips through Tsukishima's blonde, grinning all the while. "I'm not the only one growing out my hair."

Tsukishima was no longer in his body. His mind had exited, floating above them and watching in muted horror as his mouth moved without his permission.

"I'm going to die."

"What?"

"What?"

Hinata retracted his hands, blinking through a stupefied smile, as Tsukishima straightened and turned around. Then, after a huge, laboured sigh, he ran back onto the court with his ears still glowing red.

Yamaguchi chose this moment to walk up, shaking his head as they both watched their middle blocker retreat into the safety of practice. "I think you broke him."

Hinata seemed to vibrate with joy; he laughed and it shook his whole body, bounced off every wall, lit him up until he was glowing.

"I love this."

Yamaguchi jumped at the wording; it didn't sound casual coming from Hinata, his voice too charged with passion for the wordchoice to seem anything but intentional.

"Love, huh...?"

Hinata only grinned, before letting out another laugh and running back onto the court. Yamaguchi watched with trepidatious smile.

  
Hinata had just decided to go to Brazil after graduation, so he and Tsukishima were studying together at his house.

It didn't matter that Tsukishima didn't know a lick of Portuguese and couldn't help him practice even if he tried; Hinata said just having him nearby made him focus better. And Tsukishima had his own studying to do, so it wasn't like it hurt him any.

Or it hadn't until Hinata reached across the table to drag his fingers through his hair.

"Stop it, you're frying my brain." 

It sounded less like a demand and more like plea, an admittance that Hinata's touch made all the heat in his body collect in his face. Yamaguchi told him that Hinata seemed to have caught on to his crush, so after some hesitation Tsukishima had dropped any pretense that that wasn't the case.

Hinata always responded well. "Do I have to?"

"Unlike some people, I actually have entrance exams to study for."

Hinata huffed and turned back to his notes, leaving Tsukishima in peace a little longer before he inevitably broke again.

"I think it's time for a break."

"Then take one," Tsukishima replied, not looking up from his book. Despite that, he could tell Hinata had started to frown.

"I meant both of us." Hinata got up from his seat and walked around the low table until he was at Tsukishima's side, sliding close so their thighs were touching. This close, it was easy to take both hands and run them through Tsukishima's hair.

Tsukishima closed his eyes involuntarily. "I'm dying," he breathed. It was his default phrase, they had learned, whenever Hinata shut his brain down.

Hinata dragged his nails down the nape of Tsukishima's neck, his thumbs tracing the blond's jaw. "Maybe I wanted to kill you."

Tsukishima felt a shiver go down his spine. "Fuck."

Now it was Hinata shuddering. As rude as he was, Tsukishima rarely strayed away from polite language. That single word had Hinata's eyes changing to that animal-like intensity they got on the court, a look that always left Tsukishima fascinated and frightened. But this time his eyes were half-lidded, sparkling with a hint of deviousness, and looking only at him.

It was times like these they almost said things like, 'let's date after all.' They understood that they were both interested in each other, but they never tried to cement things more than that. This thing they had between them had a time limit.

So instead they flirted, stole simple touches, and delighted in the ways they made each other feel. 

Maybe if they had started this a little earlier, before graduation and the separation of continents hung over their heads. But they hadn't, so they settled for simple touches and small victories, secret pockets of intimacy that no one else could see or prove ever happened.

  
Tsukishima doesn't not consider confessing.

And not just because Hinata already knew about his feelings. Tsukishima doesn't imagine a long distance relationship working. He doesn't imagine trying to cram as much affection as he can into the half a year before Hinata leaves, only to lose him.

These ideas never even cross his mind, because they're not what he wants. What he wants is to play in the unspoken space a little longer, immerse himself in the feeling of loving Hinata and Hinata probably loving him back, and then when it disappears he wanted to pretend that space never existed at all. That nothing ever happened because there wasn't anything to start, anything to mourn, anything to admit to.

He wanted love without the heartbreak. He wanted hands in his hair and plausible deniability. He wanted to not cry on graduation day.

It was graduation day, and Tsukishima considered pulling off his second button for Hinata but didn't. Instead he finds him after the graduation ceremony, where Hinata's family was taking pictures of him in front of the school one last time.

He waved when it looked like their photoshoot was done, and Hinata looked up from his little sister just in time to see him and break into a smile. He ran over soon after; as he got close, Tsukishima took note that Hinata still had his second button, too.

"There you are!! I've been looking for you!" Hinata jumped up, easily mussying Tsukishima's hair before he fell back to the ground. "Maybe I couldn't see you because you were hidden by your bangs!"

Tsukishima straightened his hair and his glasses, still smiling. "As if I don't stick out in every crowd. You weren't really looking at all, were you?"

"I was, kinda! Natsu kept distracting me."

They both took a second to look over at Natsu, who was flitting about the family with familiar energy, before they turned to each other again. Casually, Tsukishima reached out to card his fingers through Hinata's fringe.

"Speaking of overgrown hair, you probably have enough to wear pigtails just like your sister. You should ask her to do it for you sometime."

Inadvertently the tone of their conversation dropped: how long could that 'sometime' really exist? Hinata was leaving. It was a reality that plagued the both of their minds.

Tsukishima felt a surge of emotion come up in him, a need to say something: 'I'm going to miss you' got stuck halfway up his throat. Instead what came out was "get a haircut before you go."

Hinata merely leaned into Tsukishima's touch, eyes trained up on Tsukishima's face. "Mmhm. I definitely will."

**Author's Note:**

> Me thinking about how people often get haircuts after break ups/getting their heart broken: 👀 free real estate?


End file.
